The Promise and Possibility of New Lecture Capturing Software

Our work to enable technology-aided learning in the classrooms
of today will help extend the classrooms of the future to wherever
students are learning and engaging with their instructors and
peers.

Case in point: UB will be evaluating and implementing a new
lecture capture solution in the coming months. We’re
approaching this explicitly as an opportunity to find what’s
next in education technology, and implement it here and now at
UB.

This means looking for an option that promises more than simple
audio/video recording and PowerPoint synchronization. Our next
solution needs to offer the capability to capture whatever an
instructor is doing during instruction, on- and off-screen. And it
needs to bring students into the fold by allowing them to follow
along on their devices, during and after class, making notes for
studying later as they go along.

In other words, we aren’t just synchronizing a
lecture—we’re synchronizing people, by making
mobile notetaking and real-time collaboration possible. Imagine an
instructor saying “heads up, this is going to be on the
exam,” and students being able to mark that moment in real
time and go back later, on a laptop or even a smartphone, right to
that point in the lecture to refresh their memory. We already know
about the power of context-dependent learning; let’s find and
implement technology that expands that context to make
learning more efficient.

There’s so much to consider when we look to the future of
technology and learning. Concepts like artificial intelligence,
deep learning and virtual assistants will almost certainly be
changing the landscape of instruction and administration in higher
education, sooner than we think—and that change brings with
it the potential for a better learning environment for students and
instructors alike.

That’s why we're looking ahead. Just as UB cares enough to
invest in the learning experience of today, we need to bring the
advantages of future technology to the ones doing the
learning—and those teaching them—today.